My answer was to whip my sword from the stick and put myself on the defensive. The door stood in an angle of the room, excellently placed for my purpose, as my two opponents would be much hampered in attacking me together, and I was not afraid of what either could do single-handed.
Their anger at my resistance made them deaf to the protests and expostulations of their superior. The red man was the first to cross swords, and he was so indifferent a swordsman that I could have disabled him had not the second perceived his inferiority and made at me in his turn.
A very pretty fight followed, but infinitely perilous to me. Even if I were successful I could not see how possibly to escape from the house, which as I knew was swarming with men. But I went to work with a will, and soon had cause to thank the advantage I gained owing to the position of the door.
The object of the less furious of the two was rather to disarm than to wound, and I noticed that he neglected more than one opportunity of wounding me. The other was a hot-headed fool, however, and was obviously dead bent on killing me; but a couple of minutes later I had an excellent chance of settling matters with him. He was fighting in a furious, haphazard, reckless fashion, when the second man stumbled from some cause and was out of the fray for several passes. I made the most of the respite, and pressing the fight to the utmost, I ran my assailant through the sword-arm, inflicting a wound which caused him to drop his sword. I kicked it behind me, and was thus free to devote my whole attention to my other assailant.
I was cleverer with the weapon than he, as I perceived to my intense satisfaction, and was considering where I would wound him and end the fight, when my luck turned. I trod by mischance on the hilt of the sword at my feet, stumbled, and, unable to save myself, fell staggering at full length on the floor.
It was all over, and I gave myself up for lost, when a most unexpected and infinitely welcome interruption came.
A door at the other end of the room, which was hidden by the curtains and tapestries that covered the walls, opened, and I heard a woman’s soft clear voice, in which vibrated a note of indignation and anger, exclaim:
“Gentlemen, what is this brawling?”
The others turned at the sound of the voice, and I scrambled to my feet in an instant, gripped my weapon again, and was once more ready against attack; though I stared with all my eyes at the lovely face of the queenly woman who had entered.
“Put up your swords, gentlemen, instantly!” she said; and in obedience the man who still had his weapon sheathed it and fell back abashed behind his superior officer.